


A Million Shadows [7/10]

by balthesar



Series: A Million Shadows [7]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balthesar/pseuds/balthesar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Alright, alright, here's one,' Gwen said, laughing. 'My mates and I -- we were all in my best friend's dorm at university -- got really drunk after exams one year, and we -- I don't remember who suggested it, probably either Becky or Dominic -- had the brilliant idea of playing strip Snap.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Million Shadows [7/10]

"Alright, alright, here's one," Gwen said, laughing. "My mates and I -- we were all in my best friend's dorm at university -- got really drunk after exams one year, and we -- I don't remember who suggested it, probably either Becky or Dominic -- had the brilliant idea of playing _strip Snap._ "

The pair had staked out a tall burgundy-upholstered booth in the quieter corner, opposite the front door of the pub. Gwen was slowly drinking a pint of lukewarm lager -- unlike the last time she'd been out, she hadn't felt the need to tip back half in one swallow, but then again she was getting used to the barely-controlled insanity of Torchwood. Toshiko toyed with the slice of green apple on the rim of her second apple martini.

Toshiko looked incredulous. "Really?" she asked, leaning forward on the table. Gwen grinned and nodded, a little sheepishly. Tosh burst into laughter.

"God, I don't think I've ever done something that wild," she said, sipping her drink.

"No?" Gwen asked.

Tosh's innocent expression cracked with a little smirk. "... just a game of chess that kind of degenerated. 'Took your pawn, I'll have your pants now, too'." They both snickered.

"In my defense, I managed to keep my bra and knickers on. Dominic ended up _completely_ bare-arsed."

"Hope it was a better view than Owen, after that girl got a hold of him," Toshiko teased. "Still, wish I'd gotten a picture. Tacking that up on the notice board? Priceless."

"Mmm," agreed Gwen, swallowing a mouthful of lager. "You should've seen him a few days ago."

Toshiko's eyebrows raised. "Clothed?"

"Yes, but still hilarious. Someone -- and if it's you, 'fess up -- programmed his computer with this neon flashy Spice Girls screensaver. He yelled a bit, obviously, but he didn't completely lose it until Ianto brought him coffee... in a Spice Girls World Tour mug."

Toshiko couldn't contain a laugh. "I didn't. But he went, you know. To the World Tour. Drove all the way to London. I don't think he knows that I know, but it came up on the background search for his personnel file."

Gwen snerked, nearly snorting her beer. Toshiko grinned a little.

"Comes up on his daily-use records, too. I think he's still looking for an autographed photo of Geri on eBay."

"I'm not sure whether that's better or worse than this other bloke I knew -- his name was Bruce, had some tattoos, like barbed wire around his arms, and was absolutely obsessed with heavy metal."

"Ugh, turnoff," Toshiko replied with a headshake.

"No, no, the sex was fine, it was brilliant--" Gwen explained, Tosh's expression growing increasingly dubious. "I didn't know he was into all that until we'd shagged a few times, and by then..." Gwen shrugged. "Too late."

"How could you not notice?" she asked.

Gwen grinned and sipped her lager. "He was a bad boy, you know? One of those guys you meet -- you never bother asking what they do for a living, you don’t even notice that their flat's a dump..." Toshiko smiled teasingly, knowingly.

"What?" Gwen asked, suddenly a little paranoid.

Toshiko pressed her lips together for a moment, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. "Should've known."

"Should've known what?" demanded Gwen.

"You and bad boys. Makes perfect sense now," Toshiko replied with a laugh. She leaned back against the padded both, sipping her tart martini with a playful smirk.

"Oh, please." Gwen shook her head. "I've had it up to _here_ with sodding bad boys," she said with an emphatic gesture, her hand level with her forehead. "I'm happy with Rhys. He's so... _sane._ "

"Must be nice." Toshiko sounded a little wistful. "I mean, to have someone to go home to. Of course, you can't tell him much, but I'm sure it's worth it."

Tosh's comment stung Gwen a little. She knew Tosh hadn't meant it to. It really shouldn't have, but... she was right. Too right. Gwen could hardly tell Rhys a word and it was different from working with the police. She'd been able to say a little then -- where she'd had to dart off to late in the evening or early in the morning, what crisis was weighing on her mind. She'd been able to introduce him to her co-workers. They'd gone to Gwen's company Christmas party together for a few years. But now, since she joined the 'special ops' unit, since she'd signed up with Torchwood, nothing but lies and omissions.

Gwen had fallen silent for a few moments, rubbing out a ring on the dark table with her pinky. She glanced up with a slightly apologetic look. "... I am sorry about what happened with Mary."

Toshiko shrugged, a somber mood falling upon her suddenly. "Don't worry about it."

"No, I mean it. You seemed happy with her." Except when she was leaving; then you seemed miserable. "Love looks good on you."

"I don't think I was in love with her," Toshiko replied, taking a gulp of her martini. "... It wasn't like that. She was... _exciting_. And naughty. And a little reckless. She made _me_ feel exciting. Mary was just--" She sighed. "Too good to be true."

Gwen shook her head. "I don't know. She really seemed to fancy you."

Toshiko smiled faintly; it didn't reach her eyes. "Moot point, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," Gwen said. She sipped her beer, holding it in her mouth to taste it for a few moments before swallowing. "It's always weird after someone like that leaves. They don't ever really break up properly, they just leave and don't come back. Or they just stop calling. Bruce was like that. We never properly broke up. And then I met Rhys, and..." She shrugged.

"It's weird," Toshiko agreed. "It's even weirder 'cos I'm still not sure whether she's even _human_. ... Christ! How many people have ever said that?" She laughed a little.

"To Torchwood." Gwen lifted her glass with a wry smile; Tosh clinked hers against it.

Toshiko looked thoughtful as she sipped her drink. Gwen's eyebrows raised behind the rim of her pint. "... It doesn't even matter, does it? I mean, even if she's an alien or something from a billion light-years away and cruised off on a pan-dimensional surfboard riding a bloody shockwave, what's the difference between that and her just being some woman from Roath I met in the pub who won't call back?" Toshiko sighed softly, thinking back. "She was fun, though. The first night we met, we got kicked out of our cab two blocks from my flat because the driver got pissed off at us and we didn't even care. Barely made it home." She smiled. "Best fun I've had in a long time."

"Should've known. You and bad girls." Gwen grinned.

***

Jack sat in his bunker-bedroom and signed onto the Torchwood network, linking his wrist computer to his laptop to bypass the firewalls. He didn't want Toshiko or Ianto to find out what he was investigating or that he had investigated at all. Clicking through nodes, his passwords allowing higher and higher security, Jack couldn't shake a sense of near-dread at what he might uncover.

Mary had recognized Ianto, completely illogically. She knew him. She knew his name. She could recognize him in a crisis situation with only an instant to think. It was unlikely they were just acquaintances. Jack didn't sleep much -- didn't need to anymore -- so he stayed up and watched the closed-circuit footage from the day, watched Ianto as he went about his menial tasks late at night. Ianto couldn't have just been some bloke she met in a pub, because he knew Ianto didn't go to pubs -- he barely left the Hub. Eavesdropping was an unlikely source; Mary was a good agent, but Ianto had only lurked when she came in and hadn't said anything. Besides, she'd managed to maneuver Tosh into bringing her to Torchwood -- why wouldn't Mary have tried with Ianto?

And there was that tone in her voice, that shock of recognition...

Jack scrolled through the list of documents linked from Ianto Jones' node. An in-progress shopping list, a revised recipe for the protein barbeque sauce, several photos of a slightly-younger-looking Ianto with a pretty black woman, resume, employment history, requisition forms, regular bills for power and water for 'Historic Cardiff Walking Tours', instant messenger logs, standard Torchwood personnel file with background. Ianto's was brief, but Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd read it.

Young, obviously; Jack did the math in his head -- only twenty-six. A master's degree: that raised Jack's eyebrows. Signed on early with Torchwood One, climbed the ranks quickly in the computer analysis division, ended up -- Jack's finger traced down the screen -- Assistant to the Assistant Division Director. A girlfriend, also of the London Torchwood, Lisa Hallett. Lived in Earl's Court five years. Sang in a male choir, competed at the Eisteddfod. His only living relative listed was his mother, no siblings; she lived somewhere in Cardiff, according to the records. Ianto was obviously one of the few survivors from the Battle of Canary Wharf; Lisa was listed as a known casualty. His police record was spotless, without so much as a parking ticket.

Fascinating, for certain, and some of his file -- and the gaps therein -- made Jack frown, but none of it answered his question: how the hell did Mary know Ianto? He'd hired Ianto eight months ago, the same time Mary said she'd been swept through the Rift, right after London had been besieged by Cybermen and Daleks. Since then, Ianto was under the same scrutiny any member of the team would be. The most unusual, exciting thing he regularly did was watch taped football matches upstairs in the tourism office.

Jack frowned deeply. None of it added up. Shit.

***

Ianto paced in circles around his sparsely-furnished apartment, turning a fist-sized piece of solid blown glass -- his paperweight -- over and over in his hands. There had to be a reasonable explanation for Bristow's outburst, one that revealed a little, gave away a meaningless bit of unknown information, but was simple and airtight enough that no one would go digging.

It was unlikely she'd told Jack anything: Bristow was so shocked to see him there in the Hub that he was reasonably sure that she hadn't even been thinking, much less talking, about him. Plus, Jack hadn't done anything yet, and if he knew...

Perhaps he'd known Bristow in London? She sounded like she'd spent time there. Besides, her wrist computer should be effectively out of range -- assuming the 'pan-dimensional surfboard' had even gotten her to corporeal four-dimension space, assuming the Rift hadn't spat her out in a parallel universe or swallowed her whole -- so confirming his story would be nearly impossible.

Yes. He'd met Bristow -- Mary -- in London, when he was working with Torchwood One, before he'd met Lisa. They'd met in a pub, had a brief but torrid affair and then had gone their separate ways.

... It needed work, but it was better than nothing.

***

"Hallo, gorgeous," Gwen called as she shrugged off her jacket, just inside the front door. Rhys smiled as he came in from the living room for a kiss. She returned it with a playful nip, hanging her coat up and running her fingers through her hair.

"Glass of wine?" he asked, leading her back towards the kitchen.

"Just got back from the pub with a girl from work," Gwen explained. "She was upset -- a messy break-up, you know? So... just a little one." She grinned impishly.

"Coming right up," Rhys replied as Gwen sat down at the counter. He poured two glasses of cabernet and set them next to the plates of steaming lasagna.

"Smells good."

Rhys kissed her on the top of the head. "Thanks. I slaved all day." Gwen snerked. The telly droned in the background in the corner under the cupboards; he'd nearly turned it off when the news announcer piped up with a warning: _Is your flu just the flu? Sore throat and drowsiness may be just more than the seasonal bug. Is there an epidemic sweeping the nation? On Tonight with--_

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Of course it's a cold. Bloody news, always trying to scare you." Rhys snapped off the TV.

"Come sit down, love. The lasagna's delicious."

***

Across the airwaves, Trevor McDonald continued in authoritative tones. "A sudden rash of influenza has been reported throughout Wales and southern England. The symptoms seem simple enough: sore throat and fever, accompanied by a headache. The beginning of the outbreak was reported to be earlier this week, and strangely, the young are at more risk than the old."

He looked concerned, presumably on behalf of the tragically-endangered young. "After a period of only hours, the afflicted degenerate quickly, the majority of patients developing blurred or double-vision and severe weakness. Doctors are baffled at the progression. Within a day or less, most patients exhibit tremors or other bizarre movements, intense muscle pain and increasingly-delayed mental response. Cerebral scans of afflicted patients indicate a shutdown of upper-level brain activity with no clear cause. Despite medical attention, many patients experience psychotic breaks or hallucinations; it doesn't last long, however, before the last stage of the alarming disease commences."

He leaned towards Camera Three, adopting a grave tone. "Within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, according to doctors across the nation, one-hundred percent of patients become comatose and unresponsive to treatment. Thousands have already died without waking; thousands more sleep on, hoping for a cure."


End file.
